Love Is Love (Except When It Isn't)

Dissecting the Oversimplification of Attraction

“Everybody likes sex,” said Bobby-Lynne, a character in Ti West’s hit horror film, X. Up until that point, I had, surprisingly, really liked the movie, but after that, I became increasingly frustrated.

Half of my irritation came from the fact that the filmmakers hired actors much younger than the characters of Pearl and Howard—the film’s villains—making the octogenarians look more like arthritic monsters than actual human beings. (I know lots of senior citizens, and none of them look like the wax figures in this film.) If you’re going to make a movie commenting on biases against elderly people, maybe don’t cast actors decades the characters’ junior to play the roles. I’m sure there are loads of senior actors down to shoot a sex scene.

But that’s not the point here.

The other half of my ire came from the line I opened with today: “Everybody likes sex.” The thing is, they don’t. I would know, because I’m asexual.

For most of my life, I thought I was just a prude, or had been permanently brainwashed by a conservative upbringing, or would one day meet the right person who would finally unlock my sexual awakening. Of course, as every other non-heterosexual person knows, that never happened.

Unlike other sexual orientations, however, asexuality is about who we aren’t sexually attracted to, rather than who we are sexually attracted to. It is a sexual orientation defined by the absence of a sexual orientation.

I first learned about asexuality from a random YouTube video, and the idea resonated with me immediately. However, I brushed it aside because I’d had crushes before—I’d felt romantic attraction, even sensual attraction—and therefore believed that there was something else wrong with me that prevented me from feeling love like other people, of any sexual orientation.

And therein lies the problem: We tie sexual attraction together with romantic, sensual, emotional, and aesthetic attraction. Our society hasn’t fully realized that these forms of attraction are not necessarily linked together. We can experience some of them with different kinds of people, or we may not experience them at all.

There’s often a kneejerk reaction to label asexuality as an illness or impairment—a result of trauma or a hormonal imbalance—when some of us have been born this way, just like some of us are born homosexual or bisexual. Even if it were resulting from trauma or hormonal imbalance, that doesn’t make it any more or less legitimate to those who experience asexuality. Casting aspersions doesn’t solve the problem; it only makes us feel more alienated and alien.

Terms like “gay” or “straight” can further reinforce this idea. For example, I am heteroromantic but asexual, so even though I’m romantically attracted to men, I don’t check the right boxes to still consider myself a straight woman. Similarly, as a heteroromantic, cisgender woman, I don’t feel “queer enough” to claim a spot in the LGBTQ+ community.

My experience with aphobia (or acephobia, the discrimination against asexual people) doesn’t come from direct discrimination. Rather, it comes from our society’s obsession, and repression, of sex. We can’t get enough of sex, yet we still treat it as taboo or dirty (as discussed thoroughly in X). If we could just have open discussions about sex, then people who aren’t part of the allonormative mainstream could finally feel included.

I was disappointed in X because it felt like a blatant disregard for asexual people. But I wasn’t surprised. It’s nearly impossible to watch movies or shows for an adult audience without being bombarded by sex. Even though I’m used to it, it still frustrates me because it further deepens the rift between my sexual identity (or lack thereof) and that of most other people. After all, sex sells, as the saying goes.

One of the reasons I was excited to watch X was because it was about sex. I knew what I was getting into; I didn’t have to sit through gratuitous sex or nudity that was completely unrelated to the story’s plot. This movie was about sex, and that’s okay.

When the senior sex scene came, which may have caused allos (allosexuals, or those who experience sexual attraction) to feel disturbed or uncomfortable, I was sitting there like, “Um, hi, yeah, I don’t like any of this, regardless of age.” I felt like I was missing part of the story because the target audience was the other 99 percent of the population who feels sexual attraction.

Note: Asexuality is a broad spectrum, with myriad identities within it—such as demisexual or cupiosexual, and sex-repulsed or sex-favorable. And though the single unifying feature is a lack of sexual attraction, that in no way means that aces (asexual people) don’t, can’t, or won’t have sex. Many aces have sex and enjoy the experience, even if they aren’t sexually attracted to their partners. Indeed, as is the case with demisexuals, aces can sometimes develop sexual attraction for a particular person (though a relationship should not be built on the expectation that this will happen).

Long story short, love is a lot more than sexual attraction, and sometimes love doesn’t include that at all. Love is complicated and messy, and far more kinds of love exist than we usually imagine when we say that “love is love.”

The important thing is that regardless of what kinds of attraction we feel, we should all strive to respect those with different experiences of love and nurture a more inclusive society for all.

be conscious, be kind, be vegan